


1000 Memories

by millenniumprophet (CrossroadProphet)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dark Side of Dimensions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 08:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11963502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrossroadProphet/pseuds/millenniumprophet
Summary: When Aigami banished Ryou to pay for the crimes of the Ring Spirit, there was no pharaoh to come to his aid. Instead, Ryou had to trust in himself and a very different spirit to see him through.Alternatively: This is the scene we deserved from DSOD.





	1000 Memories

One minute, Ryou was standing before Aigami, begging his forgiveness for the terrors of the Ring. The next, the Ring was nearly within his reach and he was gone. His breath stuttered still, wet and teary, as he looked around. No Aigami. No Jounouchi. No Ring. Just him and him alone on an empty street. Ryou brought his hands up to his face and wiped at the tears to clear his vision. Ahead of him, the street was blurry and white, behind him clear and bright. He started to run.

It wasn’t the first time he'd found himself thrown somewhere he didn’t belong, but for the love of the gods he'd hoped he'd never be in this situation again. The streets around him grew blurry as the very color was seeped from them. "You survived the Shadow Realm, Ryou," he said under his breath. "You can survive this— whatever this is." 

Punishment. That was the first thing he could think of to explain it. The way Aigami looked at him. The memory of what the Spirit had done. This was all for that. His eyes were still wet, but the tears had stopped. He could grieve for the memories tugging at him later. First he needed to survive. 

He stopped to catch his breath and whipped around the intersection. He knew this place, this street, but the details were empty and hollow in all directions except one. Ryou pushed himself and took off again. Home. There was a flutter in his chest beneath his ribs and he knew home was where he needed to go before the empty horrors of this world could catch up to him.

He didn't pass a single person in this hollow Domino. He ran past bleached storefronts and homes, abandoned and empty, every minute draining more and more color from the street around him until he made it to his building. The rest of the street was a sketch of itself, but the apartment was whole, a solid burst of color in this nightmare that Ryou knew was safe.

Inside, his apartment was as quiet and empty as ever, but it was his and it was home. Exactly as he remembered it. This was where he needed to be, he could feel that fact hammering in his chest, but why? What was here that could combat nothingness? There was a shudder from the door behind him and Ryou turned, white hair wisping in his face as he took a step back. It shuddered harder, the wood creaking. 

He would not be taken by this. He would not! Ryou closed his eyes and there was a sudden flash of warmth that washed out from him in a wave, comforting and powerful. When the warmth began to ebb back inside him, he opened his eyes and Ryou saw he was no longer alone in the room.

The boy standing in front of him was dressed in white robes, a staff held between them and the encroaching nothingness at the door. And Ryou knew him better than he knew himself.

"My White Mage..."

The face that glanced back at him was a younger, but near perfect reflection of his own. "We don't have much time."

The Mage planted the staff on the ground and it stood rigid, ready, and still between them and the nothing. Ryou couldn’t see anything change for the better, but nothing got worse, and that was good enough. The Mage turned to face him.

"What is this place?"

"Another plane. Something of the Millennium Cube's creation. It's feeding on your memories."

Ryou's eyes flickered around. It didn't look like anything had changed here, but things were starting to look... dim. "What happens when it's done?"

The Mage's smile turned pained. "Let's keep that from happening, Master."

Ryou made a small noise of discomfort and glanced around the room again. "What do I need to remember?"

"Anything. If you forget everything, it wins. But Aigami didn't account for me when he sent you here." The Mage stepped closer to him and his hands were warm when they took Ryou's own and squeezed. "Your world has been so narrow," he said softly, holding Ryou's gaze. "Your friends and your games. And the rest of your memories are already going dim because of it. Your friends aren't here right now to help you, but I am. And you and I have plenty of memories together."

There was a moment and then Ryou understood. "Monster World."

The apartment around them rippled and the scene shifted like building blocks being set up around them. He looked up from the Mage and his apartment was gone, replaced with the woods of one his old campaigns, a sword jutting out of the ground behind them. "Amazing..."

"Welcome to my world," the Mage said, giving his hand a squeeze before he let go. "I wish we had the time for me to show you it, but we need to keep moving and keep ahead of it. The Cube's power will catch up to us. But we have fought things worse than it before, we just need to remember."

The Mage beckoned him forward and Ryou walked with his guardian, torn between worry and awe. Above them the sky was an empty, cloudless white, but the forest around them was still lush and green. He wanted to stay here, but the very ground trembled and they pushed on.

Together they moved through shifting forests, great plains with distant dragons, and quiet villages with listless NPCs. A dozen different worlds and maps that Ryou had created and designed. And they talked. They told each other the stories of their adventures, alone and with their friends. The one with the great demon. And the time the Beast Master tamed a baby dragon for the Warrior. And every time Ryou faltered and stumbled, his memory being clawed at by the nothing, the Mage swooped in with another detail to spur him on. 

"Mal'durra," Ryou said as they crossed through a small, dark village. His eyes fell towards the Inn where the quest giver had waited. "You fought a werewolf." In the distance there was a howl and Ryou's brow furrowed. "A werewolf who was...was..." A moment of panic flashed on his face and his eyes glanced between the empty buildings. They hadn't crossed a single NPC here but they could remember them— They had to. He couldn’t forget.

The Mage pointed towards the farms in the distance, hazy and blurred.

Ryou clapped his hands. "The farmer's son! He didn't know he was the wolf and he was trying to hunt it!"

"And it was a very good thing we had leveled up, because I could cast Beast Hold and—"

"And he couldn't attack."

The Mage smiled and nodded, but Ryou could see this was draining him. Like every time he stepped in to help, another bit of his own memory and power faded.

Ryou caught his hand. "How much longer do you have...?" 

He looked up, frowning at the empty sky. "Not long enough." The colors were fading again and there was a shimmer of the apartment they'd started in as the Monster World memories began to fade. How much time had they bought? How much time did he have left?

"We stalled and stalling isn't working," Ryou said, fist clutching at his shirt where something once hung. "We need to stop it."

"I don't have that kind of power." He smiled weakly at Ryou. "We're going to have to go on a lot more adventures when you get out of this. I've spent a lot of experience to keep you safe, Master."

There was another flicker around them and Ryou's apartment, bleached and white, erased the dreary village entirely, and this time the Mage flickered with it. "No, no you can't go."

The Mage grabbed the staff they'd left standing there and turned quickly. "I have to. But we'll meet again, I know it. There's one more adventure, Master. One more game." The door of the apartment shuddered violently, the empty presence chasing them tired of being fooled and the Mage backed away.

"One more game... What game?" Ryou shook his head. He couldn't focus, couldn't get his thoughts in order. "They're muddling together and I don't know..."

The Mage smiled sadly. "I have one more trick up my sleeve, but you need to remember the rest when I'm gone. Good luck, Ryou Bakura." And the Mage turned and ran straight into the trembling door. There was no collision, just a burst of white and Ryou threw his arm up over his eyes. When he looked again, an invisible sun glared down on him and desert sand stretched between him and an ancient city. One last game. 

Ryou glanced behind him where the sand stretched into nothing and he ran to the city.

Memory World.

How did things always end here?

Unlike Domino and the streets of the other campaigns, the capital city was alive with color and people and life. People talked around him as he ran, their voices carrying over the expected bustle of morning markets in a melody that was neither Egyptian nor Japanese, but some broken dream mix of the two. 

Not just a game, but a memory more vivid than any other.

Ryou stopped suddenly in the sandy street. The people here had been lively, but none of them had noticed him. Ahead of him, however, a figure was watching him, waiting for him, a figure he'd only seen flashes of in the most forgotten corners of the Millennium Ring.

"Spirit..."

He laughed. "Not quite." 

The Thief King stood shorter than Ryou would have imagined, but seemed just as bold as his ghost ever was. The red of his cloak was a brilliant splash of color in the dusty market, though Ryou's eyes were drawn to his chest. No Ring hung around his neck, just stolen chains of Egypt's finest funerary gold. Not the Spirit that Ryou had known, no, this was the man he'd once been, the man whose memories this very world had been built on.

Ryou took a step towards him.

"Not much time now, landlord, let's do something about that."

"Are you real?" Ryou asked.

"As real as anything else here. My memories are as real as yours. The Mage was a good trick," he said, flashing Ryou a grin, "but he doesn't match up against the real deal."

"How? You're supposed to be gone."

"But you remember me."

Ryou huffed. "How could I forget?"

“Hold onto that,” the thief chuckled. He nodded towards the street behind him. “Let’s keep moving. These are my memories it’s taking now.”

Ryou started to follow with a frown. The thief had been used by Necrophades, his grief and his rage twisted until he was nothing more than a weapon. Ryou had seen flashes of his memory before, what little was left that hadn’t been torn to shreds by the darkness. This thief wasn’t the evil his ghost became, but Ryou was the only one alive who knew that. “Will I forget you?”

“Only if it gets you. And then you have bigger problems than my ren, landlord.”

Together they ducked through the streets, sticking to the shadows like a pair of thieves. They passed dozens of NPCs Ryou and the Spirit had designed, brewers and children and soldiers and merchants, each going about their daily chores, unfazed by the empty sky and the two pale haired ghosts moving past.

“Spirit...” Ryou said, stopping before they crossed another street.

The thief turned.

“Thank you.”

He stared at Ryou. “For what?”

Ryou gestured to the world around him, still bright and full of color despite the creeping nothing coming after them, and the thief laughed.

“I’m part of your memories now, landlord. This is your doing, not mine. I’m just a guide here.” The thief’s silver eyes fell to the empty spot on Ryou’s chest. “Besides, you have nothing to thank me for.”

“That wasn’t really you.”

He chuckled softly and shook his head before starting off down the alley again. “Course it wasn’t. You never could hold a grudge.”

“Well, you could never let one go,” Ryou countered, following at his heel. “I guess we balance out.”

Before the thief could reply to that, the world around them shook and he threw an arm across Ryou’s chest to guard him. “No,” he growled. “My memories are still here! You come for me!”

At his fingertips, Ryou felt the warmest of tingles and looked down at his hands. Brilliant gold sand shimmered and swirled around him. “Spirit...”

“No! We’re stronger than this, damn it.”

“Spirit, look at me!”

The thief spun, eyes widening as the sand swirled up from the ground and twisted around Ryou.

“I think it’s okay...” Ryou looked up at him and smiled. “It doesn’t feel so empty.” There was another tremble and the buildings started to fade away, not forgotten, but growing distant. “I think this is how it ends.”

The thief’s hand was quick and grabbed at Ryou, their arms pressed close. “You remember this, Ryou Bakura. You remember this.”

Ryou laughed and for the first time since he got here felt the tears stinging at his eyes. “All this time, I wondered if you actually knew my name.”

The thief smiled and brought them nearly chest to chest, the sand swirling faster around Ryou and only Ryou, as the desert around them fell away. Before the thief could say another word, Ryou was pulled, like a great hand tugging at the back of his neck, and when he blinked his eyes to see past the shining sand he was gone.

Stadium sounds erupted around him all at once and the huge lights against the night sky were blinding as he tried to get his bearings. Where was he now? How long had he been gone? Gods, he hadn’t had to ask himself those questions in awhile.

“Oh thank god!” Suddenly, there were arms wrapped quickly around his neck and the breath was nearly knocked out of him as Anzu caught him in a hug. “You’re okay! Yugi, he’s okay!”

Ryou looked around quickly. Anzu, Jounouchi, and Honda surrounded him and Yugi— Yugi was playing a card game that their lives likely depended on. He almost wanted to laugh. Some things never changed. 

He looked back at his friends and for a moment thought he saw a familiar silver haired figure watching him in the crowd. They locked eyes for a moment and the man smiled, but was gone before Ryou could say a word. 

He remembered. 

Ryou placed his scarred hand over his chest and smiled to himself. “Thank you, Spirit.”


End file.
